Sunday, 25 March 2012

Bristol City Council has announced its preference for the former waste depot site on Sea Mills Lane to be turned over for housing development.

The 1.1 hectare site on the corner of Sea Mills Lane and Avon Way (see Google street map image below) is owned by the Council and its use has been reassessed as part of the Council's site development document which is currently the subject of a public consultation until May 18th. An initial Council report suggests that up to 25 houses could be built on the site.

The City is required under the terms of its nationally-coordinated Core Strategy, to provide 26,400 new homes in the city by 2026. As a brown field site, The Sea Mills Lane location is a preferred site, with the new housing needing no use of green spaces or green belt land.

Avon Wildlife Trust, meanwhile, has called for the site to include a mix of housing and open space, in order to maintain the site's role as a wildlife corridor between between Sea Mills Wood and the Trym Valley, both of which are designated as Sites of Nature Conservation Interest.

The site is currently unused and was formerly a depot for waste management SITA.

The Council is also proposing redeveloping the Coombe House old people's home on Canford Lane, which it describes as a building "not fit for pupose" and also subject to the Council's recently floated proposal to outsource its entire stock of care home provision to the private/charitable sector. The Council estimates that 15 new omes could be built on the Coombe House site.